Austro-Germans there
did not survive a very large number of the splendid veterans of Marshal
Mi[vs]i['c], and in Macedonia the ranks were filled by Yugoslav
volunteers from the United States. Many of these Yugoslavs (over half of
them Dalmatians and Bosnians) were included, in the army which entered
Montenegro. The whole force at the time of the National Skup[vs]tina
consisted of about 200 men, ten of whom were Serbs from the old
kingdom--and if anyone maintains that 200 men could impose their will
upon a population of 350,000 which has arms enough and is skilful in the
use of arms, he makes it clear that he knows little of the Montenegrins.

THE ASSEMBLY WHICH DEPOSED HIM

The Podgorica Skup[vs]tina was not elected by these troops. No one will
pretend that in the excitement of those days the voting was conducted in
a calm and methodical fashion. Here and there a dead man was elected;
the proceedings--though they were not faked, as in Nikita's time--were
rough-and-ready. But if the deputies had been selected in a more
haphazard fashion, say according to the first letter of their surnames,
the result would have been identical--they would, with a crushing
majority, have deposed their King and voted for the merging of their
country in the rest of Yugoslavia. If the former Skup[vs]tina had been
convoked, as some people advocated--it would have most effectively
nonplussed the pro-Nikita party here and elsewhere (it might even have
silenced Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., who asserted[28] that this "packed
assembly" consisted of "Serbian subjects and bought agents in about
equal numbers")--but then two-fifths of the country--those territories
acquired in the Balkan War--would not have been represented. Observe,
however, that the Skup[vs]tina in Nikita's time was for union with
Serbia. Even then--although of the 76 deputies the king nominated 14,
while the other 62, of course, were people whom he pretty well approved
of--even then they had passed resolutions in favour of an economic
union, a common army and common representatives abroad. The Podgorica
Parliament had 168 members, of whom 42 were from the new areas. The
Constitution did not provide for such an assembly; but Nikita's friends
who clamoured for the Constitution evidently had forgotten that under
Articles 2 and 16 a king who deserts his country and people is declared
to have forfeited his legal rights. Those foolish partisans who cried
that it was monstrous not to wai